Judy Graff's sublime-to-the-ridiculous (well, mostly ridiculous) take on real estate for east San Fernando Valley and North Los Angeles communities. This includes Hollywood Hills, Burbank, Studio City and Toluca Lake real estate and homes for sale, and also covers Valley Village, North Hollywood, Glendale, Atwater, Sherman Oaks and other L.A. areas too. General news and musings as well.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Wild parrots in Burbank

As if Burbank wasn't already distinguished enough: I just learned that the town is also the residence of a big flock of wild parrots. I saw them myself yesterday. I'm told that these pretty birds squawk their way across Magnolia Park early in the am and about 5-ish in the evening. Going where? Who knows. Being chased by a huge wild airborne kitty, perhaps? Dunno. Going to work/coming home from the studios? Unlikely -- they wouldn't get off until 6. Roosting after feasting on crumbs at Porto's? Maybe. If you know anything about these parrots, I'd love to know who/what/when/where/why.

6 comments:

Well, I can't answer your questions as to who/what/where/when/why, but these beautiful birds (a hundred or so) were on my street this weekend at around 5pm. I heard them before I saw them! I've never seen anything like it! Absolutely stunning! I've been living in Burbank for about eight years, and this is the first time I've seen them, but I hope they come back soon.

They were on our street S. Lincoln near Disney yesterday and on the next street over today. They are really loud, but such a joy to watch and we love listening to them "talk" to each other. They are just dropping leaves as they eat the berries. It fun to watch.

Wow, until today I had only seen about 8 to 10 parrots at a time randomly moving from tree to tree in a park or neighborhood. Today, around 5:15 pm at Magnolia Blvd and N. Fairview St., I saw two flocks of parrots flying roughly from west to east. They were squawking and flapping in their weirdly ungainly way. I counted over 36 birds in the first flock and there were at least as many in the second flock. It was awesome. I've never seen this before in the 3 years that I have lived in Burbank.

My understanding is that the former Busch Gardens theme park in Van Nuys [now the Anhueser Busch brewery] had red and green parrots, and that when they closed in the 1970's, a bunch of their parrots either escaped or were released, and live all over Los Angeles. It's as good an explanation as I've been able to find.